Friday, October 22, 2010

This proceeding rewards criminality, reinforces a dhimmi posture on the part of French authorities toward the Islamic community, and hastens France's cultural and societal demise.

PARIS -- Two French police officers will stand trial accused of failing to save the lives of two teens whose 2005 deaths sparked weeks of riots around the country, lawyers said Friday.

The officers will face charges of "non-assistance to a person in danger," said a lawyer for the victims' families, Jean-Pierre Mignard. The charge carries up to five years in prison and up to euro75,000 ($95,400) in fines.

Two boys, 15-year-old Bouna Traore and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, died while hiding from police in a power substation in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on Oct. 27, 2005 when they were electrocuted. Another boy with them suffered severe burns.

Local youths blamed the police for the deaths and exploded in anger, setting cars ablaze and smashing store windows. That tapped a deep well of frustration among largely minority youth in poor housing projects nationwide, and fiery unrest spread across the country, raging for three weeks in the nation's housing projects. Tensions between youths and police still plague such neighborhoods....

The lawyer for the police officers, Daniel Merchat, said his clients were "sacrificed on the altar of public opinion" and that there was not enough evidence of a crime....

An internal police review of the electrocutions faulted police officers for their handling of the incident. It confirmed the officers had been chasing the teens before they were killed, which the Interior Ministry and police had initially denied. The report said officers should immediately have notified French energy company EDF that the youths were hiding in the power station.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Of course it has. It was based on faulty assumptions: namely, that all cultures essentially share the same values and aspirations for the future. That all cultures are in agreement on some fundamental level on what "freedom," "dignity," "justice," and "human rights" mean, in line with the expectations that Western cultures hold for those terms. That Islamic teachings and laws are fully compatible with Western understandings of the aforementioned terms, or that the differences are nothing that can't be smoothed over with a little "dialogue" and perhaps accommodation.

And lastly, there is the belief that people are really all the same deep down, except for when they're different, and that's always something to celebrate. One who does not buy this bill of goods is branded backwards at best (more "dialogue!"), and hateful at worst.

And that brings us to Europe in 2010. "Merkel: German multiculturalism 'utterly failed'," by Melissa Eddy for the Associated Press, October 17:

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's declaration that Germany's attempts to build a multicultural society had "utterly failed" is feeding a growing debate over how to deal with the millions of foreigners who call the country home.

Merkel told a meeting of young members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union that while immigrants are welcome in Germany, they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural norms -- sounding a note heard increasingly across Europe as it battles an economic slump and worries about homegrown terrorism.

The media may blame what but will, but this issue transcends economics and even the threat of terrorism. If there were never another terrorist attack in Europe, the Islamization of the continent and its implications for human rights would still be an issue.

"This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed," Merkel said.

Merkel's comments were met with applause by the more conservative members of her party, but some Germans in cosmopolitan Berlin argued Sunday she was out of touch with the country's daily life.

"I think her statement is very black and white and does not reflect honestly the lifestyle people are living here," said Daniela Jonas, a German setting up a flea market in the city's diverse Kreuzberg district, where immigrants and native-born Germans live among each other.

Germany and other European countries have grappled with the idea of themselves as immigration nations and Merkel has long been skeptical of the country's attempts to build a multicultural society that includes its estimated 5 million Muslims.

Many immigrants speak little or no German, work in low paying jobs or live off of government handouts at the same time the country faces an aging population and a shortage of highly skilled workers.

"Germany needs more qualified immigration to maintain its economic advantage and deal with the demographic developments," Volker Beck, a lawmaker with the opposition Greens party said Sunday.

Merkel acknowledged in her Saturday comments that then-West Germany in the 1960s opened its doors to Turkish laborers who helped the nation rebuild from the ruins of World War II. Yet German politicians believed those laborers would eventually return home. Instead, many have stayed and their children's children are now starting families here.

A European Championship football qualifier between Germany and Turkey last week reflected built-up tensions. Star Germany player Mesut Oezil, who is of Turkish heritage, was whistled and booed throughout the game by Turkey fans -- who outnumbered German supporters in Berlin's Olympic stadium.

The 22-year-old Oezil has become Merkel's poster child for successful integration, and Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in an interview Saturday that he supported Oezil's decision to play for Germany instead of his parents' native Turkey.

Gul also called on Turks living in Germany to learn to speak German "fluently and without an accent," but insisted it was up to German politicians to create the opportunities for its Turkish citizens to learn the language and integrate into society.

Last week, several German universities launched departments to train imams who would be able to lead prayers in German as well as Turkish. Most imams in Germany are sent from Turkey and speak no German.

As reported here. It would not, however, do anything about the content of Islamic texts and teachings that perpetuate practices inimical to Western standards of human rights and freedom of conscience.

Some argued Sunday that Merkel's comment makes them feel less welcome, and do nothing to encourage integration.

"It's a shame," said a man who gave his name only as Hakim, an immigrant from Morocco. "It is not good for the atmosphere in Germany and it is not a helpful comment."

Thursday, October 14, 2010

It is certainly time that the West considered systematically whether it has irreconcilable differences with Islam. The belligerence of many Islamic spokesmen and the unassimilable quality of many Muslim immigrants in the West, as well as the spectacular terrorist provocations of extreme Islamic groups, make this a very legitimate question. But it is not so easy to answer. Some passages of the Koran, and some of Muhammad's more purposeful remarks, certainly incite the inference that mortal conflict is inevitable, an impression heightened by the neurotic obsession of a great many Muslims with the red herring of Israel. It is hard for Westerners to know what to make of Islam. It speaks through an infinite number of clerical and secular leaders, and in a range of vocabularies from fraternal to genocidally hostile.

Muhammad was allegedly visited by the versatile Archangel Gabriel in 610, and told to found Islam. After twelve years, Muhammad had only 150 followers, but decamped to the Jewish oasis of Yathrib, seized control of it, renamed it Medina, set up the first mosque, and went forth to conquer Arabia. Unlike Jesus, or the contemplative and sedentary Gautama, founder of Buddhism, Muhammad was a military leader who advanced by fire and sword and told his followers to emulate him. They established Sharia, a totalitarian legal system of organizing of society, directed by clerics and going far beyond what even the most pious and fervent Westerner would consider the province of religion. Arab Islam surged westwards across Africa and into Spain, and then into France, before being repulsed by Charles Martel (Charlemagne's grandfather) at Tours in 732.To the history-minded, including many Arabs, the Arab world has been in retreat for the 13 following centuries, which may explain some of the militancy of Arab extremists.

What are now the Turkish Muslims stirred next and finally took Constantinople from the Greek Orthodox Byzantines in 1453, and then surged into Europe from the opposite side to the Arab invasion, getting to, but being repulsed from, the gates of Vienna twice, in 1529 and 1683, and they too gradually subsided. The Sunni Muslim world was organized in caliphates for some centuries, and they were relatively progressive civil societies; the Shiites were ruled by theocratic imams, and in some places, such as Iran, they still are. The Muslims are made almost incomprehensible to all but the most assiduous Western students of that culture by a combination of ancient prejudices, the ever-changing fluidity of Muslim relationships and alliances, the hydra-headed decentralization of the world Muslim community, and the bizarre and even absurd nature of many Islamic events or general reaction to them.

To many Westerners, there is an ingrained Muslim caricature of the swarthy peasant raising sinew-lean arms to the heavens, having been commanded to do so by a voice from a minaret loudspeaker; the serried ranks of men pressing their foreheads to the floor and elevating their posteriors in a gesture that is, in our culture, unserious; shady, long-unsuccessful nationalities; and recent, and not overly dynamic, colonies. Many Western Muslim populations are sinister and fractious, and their spokesmen are often unbecomingly hostile to the host nations. Their conditions are inferior, but so are their standards of civic participation....

Monday, October 11, 2010

The developers behind the proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero are blasting a $350 million lawsuit filed by a 9/11 first responder as "blind bigotry."

Vincent Forras, a former volunteer firefighter from Westchester, has sued Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Park51 -- the complex that includes the mosque -- charging that they're fronts for "interests tied to terrorism."

Forras says he deserves to be compensated for the "psychological terrorism" and emotional distress he suffered when he learned of the mosque plans.

He calls the development a "monument to the jihadists' victory over American ideals of freedom and democracy, [and] a desecration of the terrible sacrifice made by those innocents attacked."...

In a countersuit, Rauf and Park51 seek to dismiss the filing as a publicity stunt motivated by "blind bigotry."

They are also seeking $50,000 in damages and lawyers' fees.

The attorney representing the developers, Adam Leitman Bailey, is seeking to have Foras' lawsuit dismissed based on the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

A UK aid worker held hostage after being kidnapped in Afghanistan has been killed during a rescue attempt, the Foreign Office has said.

Linda Norgrove, 36, from Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland, was employed by US aid group DAI. She was seized with three local staff on 26 September.

Their two-car convoy was ambushed in the eastern province of Kunar.

Ms Norgrove was killed by her captors on Friday during a rescue mission by US forces.

Her colleagues were released unharmed last week.

The Briton is believed to have been taken by her captors from village to village as British, Afghan and other intelligence agencies worked in the remote and mountainous area of Kunar province to locate her.

Both the prime minister and Foreign Secretary William Hague were kept fully informed and British approval was given for a rescue mission to be mounted on Friday night, involving US forces with British officials offering advice.

In a statement, Mr Hague said the aid worker was "killed at the hands of her captors in the course of a rescue attempt".

He said: "Working with our allies we received information about where Linda was being held and we decided that, given the danger she was facing, her best chance of safe release was to act on that information.

"Responsibility for this tragic outcome rests squarely with the hostage takers....

Saturday, October 9, 2010

This story about Campbell's Soups in Canada introducing a halal line has gone all over the place -- mostly to hard-Left sites that, either out of ignorance or complicity, missed the main point. Many predictably cried "bigotry!," pretending that I was objecting to the idea of a halal soup line in general. Actually, I couldn't care less if Campbell's Soup introduces a halal line: if there are Muslims in Canada who will buy the soup, then that's the free market for you. Nor is it a sign of Sharia coming to America, unless Campbell's is planning to make all of its products halal, which it is not.

The real problem here is that Campbell's is getting halal certification from the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). At TPMMuckraker, hard-Left pseudo-journalistic ideologue Rachel Slajda implies that the links between ISNA, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are coming from me, rather than being demonstrable fact; she does deign to tell her luckless readers that "ISNA was, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Muslim American organizations, named as a co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial," but doesn't see fit to inform them further that the Holy Land Foundation trial was all about funding Hamas.

In reality, ISNA has admitted ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Campbell's Soup should know better, although it must also be noted at the same time that they'd be hard-pressed to find a halal authority that didn't have some unsavory ties to an Islamic supremacist and/or jihadist group, whether it be the Brotherhood or one of its allied organizations. That is the chief viable argument against any introduction of halal food lines by any company.